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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "book"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Wed, 5 Nov 2014 09:32:13 PSTLena Dunham Once Again Threatens Lawsuit Over An Interpretation Of Her Book That She Doesn't LikeMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141104/14102829038/lena-dunham-threatens-lawsuit-over-interpretation-her-book-that-she-doesnt-like.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141104/14102829038/lena-dunham-threatens-lawsuit-over-interpretation-her-book-that-she-doesnt-like.shtmlthreatening a lawsuit against Gawker for daring to publish her book proposal and comment on it, mocking Dunham. At the time, as noted, I'd never even heard of Dunham. I've still never seen her show, but I have seen/heard her interviewed a few times, and I don't quite understand why there's so much hate directed at her some of the time. She seems to have an interesting perspective on life and has turned it into a very successful TV show. Good for her. Still, this is now the second time we've felt the need to write about Dunham and, once again, it's about an apparent legal threat from her, based on her book. This time it's not about the book proposal, but the book itself, now that it's out.

The key issue? Some news sites out there interpreted part of her book to be her admitting to sexually abusing her little sister as a baby. These claims appear to be rather overblown. Various experts appear to agree that nothing Dunham did comes close to actual sexual abuse.

Still, it appears that Dunham has at least threatened one site, TruthRevolt, for writing just such a story. She demanded a retraction and a (pre-written) apology. TruthRevolt, wisely, refused. Instead, it just reprinted the text from Dunham's own book that highlights the basis for the site's original post. Ken "Popehat" White has the excellent explanation of the legal ridiculousness of Dunham's lawyers' threats:

If Ms. Dunham is alleging that the original Truth Revolt article about her is defamatory, she is wrong — unless it has deliberately and extensively misquoted her book. Truth Revolt has admitted that the article originally and incorrectly said that she was 17, not 7, when one of the incidents described took place. But absent proof that Truth Revolt made that misstatement intentionally, that's incompetence, not the actual malice required to prove up defamation of a public figure like Ms. Dunham.

Truth Revolt's characterization of Ms. Dunham's memoir is not defamation. It's classic opinion based on specific disclosedfacts. You might think that Truth Revolt's interpretation of Dunham's stories of her conduct with her sister is irrational, or unfair, or politically biased, or cruel. That doesn't make it defamatory. If I linked to one of Ben Shapiro's articles and said "this article proves that Ben Shapiro is a secret lizard person sent by Obama to discredit conservatives," that wouldn't be defamation either. It might be crazy, but it's my statement of opinion based on Shapiro's own words. If Truth Revolt had said "people have told me that Lena Dunham molested her sister" or "I have reviewed documents that suggest to me that Lena Dunham molested her sister," that would be different — that would be a statement of fact, or a statement of opinion based on undisclosed facts.

Of course, White has an alternative theory as to why all of this is happening as well:

Her threat, and her reaction to the coverage, are likely to trigger the Streisand Effect, driving orders of magnitude more eyes to the characterizations of her memoir. She's media-savvy enough that I can't help but wonder whether that's her intention in the first place. It will sell books.

Given that this is the second time she's appeared in these pages, and both times it's about threatening some random blog for highlighting her own words and mocking them... that theory is seems to have a fair bit of support.

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]]>not-how-it-works...https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20141104/14102829038Fri, 17 Oct 2014 14:43:07 PDTUK Court Blocks Author From Publishing A Book About His Own Sexual Abuse, At Ex-Wife's RequestTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141017/06444428855/uk-court-blocks-author-publishing-book-about-his-own-sexual-abuse-ex-wifes-request.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141017/06444428855/uk-court-blocks-author-publishing-book-about-his-own-sexual-abuse-ex-wifes-request.shtml
There's no doubt that even closely related or allied countries treat the issue of free speech quite differently. Perhaps our most natural European cultural equivalent, Britain, has laws that I often find either confusing or silly, with a particular eye towards their long-panned libel laws. But even correcting for cultural differences, I'm having a real hard time figuring out how a UK court can issue an injunction barring the publishing of an author's recounting of his own personal history with sexual abuse at his ex-wife's request. You'll have to forgive the vagueness here, because there are simply no names being discussed on the matter due to the ongoing litigation.

A British performing artist has been forced to shelve a book based on his experiences of childhood sexual abuse after his ex-wife obtained an injunction to prevent their young son from reading it. In a case that is alarming freedom of speech campaigners and which publishers say is deeply disturbing, the court of appeal has ordered that the artist cannot publish key sections of the book until the issue has been decided at trial.

However, his ex-wife’s lawyers dispute claims that the case could set a precedent undermining the rights of other authors, arguing that it is concerned only with the rights of one child, who has a number of health problems, who they say would suffer catastrophic psychological distress were he to read parts of his father’s work.

Let me flesh this out for you a bit. A well-known artist in the UK is publishing a memoir, including sections that deal with the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. His ex-wife obtained the injunction on publishing that factual account of his life because she believes it will harm, by her lawyer's own admission, a single child the two had together. That child is suffering a wide range of health problems, including Asperger's Syndrome, and the ex-wife is suggesting that reading the father's account would cause further harm. All of this, by the way, relies on a Victorian-era case the dealt with the intentional psychological harm some guy perpetrated on a woman in a bar by playing a practical joke on her. Seriously, I'm not making that crap up.

To be clear, the injunction is temporary, but the alarming part is that the court seems to be staying the publication in order to ask an incomplete question.

While accepting that there was a public interest in the book being published, the court granted a temporary injunction and ruled that the question of whether the boy’s rights should take priority over those of his father should be decided at a full trial.

The problem here is that the court shouldn't be tossing that public interest out so easily. Imagine, if you will, a court system that disallows factual information to be revealed simply because someone may find it unpleasant. In this particular case, we have a child with medical issues to consider, a potentially sympathetic "victim", but it need not be so, based on the law if this case sets the wrong precedent. You might simply see young children used as excuses to keep controversial information from ever seeing the light of day.

Add on top of that the concept of keeping a victim of sexual abuse from being able to do as he pleases with that information and we're suddenly diving into the arena in which the government is abusing him all over again. Not overtly, of course, but if intimidating homosexuals into staying in the closet is abuse, and it is, the same should be said of abuse-victims being prevented from telling their factual stories. Above and beyond all that, the parents could have tried to reach an agreement to simply not allow their child to read the book until a certain age.

Instead, the mysterious ex-wife is robbing the public of a piece of literature in order to protect her son from being parented. Hey, my UK peeps: either you have free speech or you don't. I know you don't have our Constitution, but if the status of speech is such that you can't write about your own lives, you may have a problem.

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]]>bwah!?!?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20141017/06444428855Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:58:00 PDTDebunking The Myth That The Internet Generation Doesn't Buy Or Read BooksMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120818/02050220088/debunking-myth-that-internet-generation-doesnt-buy-read-books.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120818/02050220088/debunking-myth-that-internet-generation-doesnt-buy-read-books.shtmldon't read long form works any more. Of course, we've been pointing out for years that this is a complete fabrication. Back in 2007, we wrote about how kids were reading more books than ever before. Two years later, we noted that there was a notable increase in reading long-form fiction books. Certainly, we've seen a massive increase in the number of books being published (even discounting "non-traditional" or self-published books, in the last decade there's been an increase in books published per year of almost 50% from about 200,000 to 300,000).

And, now there's even more evidence that the supposed death of reading by kids is a complete myth. Aaron DeOliveira alerts us to this story that shows that so-called "millennials" spend more money on books than any other demographic group. In fact, that group -- those born between 1979 and 1989 -- now buy 30% of all books sold. As the report notes, this even beats out baby boomers, despite the fact that the boomers have a lot more disposable income.

Either way, can we dispense with the twin myths that (a) the internet generation doesn't pay for content and (b) that they don't read long form books?

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]]>whoda-thunk-it?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120818/02050220088Thu, 12 Apr 2012 03:05:00 PDTHomemade Hardcovers: Yet Again, Anti-Circumvention Interferes With Fair UseLeigh Beadonhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120409/06100618426/homemade-hardcovers-yet-again-anti-circumvention-interferes-with-fair-use.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120409/06100618426/homemade-hardcovers-yet-again-anti-circumvention-interferes-with-fair-use.shtmlFont blogger Thomas Phinney writes in to tell us about his concerns with the DMCA anti-circumvention clause in relation to creating home-printed versions of digital books. Phinney prints, stitches and binds his own books at home, producing fancy hardcovers for purely personal use from legally-purchased PDF ebooks. This, alone, is a clearly protected case of fair use -- even if it runs afoul of the overreaching copyright notices found in so many ebooks. The problem is that making nice, bound editions takes some extra work, and anti-circumvention laws get in the way:

Making a really high end hardcover from a document such as a PDF involves rearranging the pages (“imposition”) in order to print them in sets on sheets with more than one page per side, so that you can fold them and sew them in groups (“signatures”).

Commercial e-​​books sold as PDFs are often encrypted with flags on the PDF permit printing, but not modification. Nor do they permit “document assembly” which is exactly what I need: the ability to rearrange, add and delete pages in the PDF. Unfortunately, common approaches to doing imposition involve generating a modified PDF: one in which the pages are at least rearranged and put more than one to a (now larger) page. So far, it looks like many (perhaps all?) imposition apps do it this way and don’t work with PDFs that have restrictions on modification (perhaps on PDFs that have *any* access restrictions?).

Now, I can easily break the encryption on a PDF, if that PDF allows opening but just has restrictions on specific uses like modification. If I do that, I can then use imposition software on a PDF that allows printing but not modification, and make a fancy book.

But (at least as I understand it, and admittedly I’m not a lawyer) the Digital Millenium Copyright Act says that circumventing an access restriction is always illegal, regardless of why I do it. That makes me a criminal if I do that, even if for the sole reason of making a pretty hardcover book. Even when printing the pages out normally and slapping glue on the spine, like a typical softcover “perfect-​​bound” book, is permitted and legal.

The inherently nonsensical nature of the anti-circumvention clause strikes again: the ends are fair use, but the means are illegal. Of course, since circumvention software itself is illegal too, this raises questions about the applications that are available -- but breaking PDF protection is so trivial that the law seems futile. MacOS even ships with a system tool (ColorSync Utility) that inadvertently removes PDF passwords (an old graphic designer's trick for clients who have lost their source files). This kind of thing is inevitable when you have a law that targets the tools instead of the actual activity, since it's a near-universal truth about tools that they can all be used for both good and bad purposes.

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]]>bound-by-lawhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120409/06100618426Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:45:41 PDTFacebook Says That If You Use The Site You Agree To Its Bogus Claim To Hold A Trademark On 'Book'Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120323/12075318226/facebook-says-that-if-you-use-site-you-agree-to-its-bogus-claim-to-hold-trademark-book.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120323/12075318226/facebook-says-that-if-you-use-site-you-agree-to-its-bogus-claim-to-hold-trademark-book.shtmlaggressive claims of trademarks on pretty much any use of "face" as a prefix or "book" as suffix. The company did eventually get a registered trademark on some uses of "Face", but the "book" part has proven more difficult. That said, you really don't have to register a trademark, but can assert common law trademarks based on use alone, which can be pretty effective. Still, the folks at Ars Technica noticed that Facebook has now slipped a little nugget into its user agreement, saying that if you use the site you effectively agree to the company's claims on a variety of trademarks. It had already included a bunch before, but has now added "book" to the list.

Ars suggests that this could strengthen Facebook's claims against sites, but I'm not convinced. While clickthrough license agreements that no one reads may have some force under law, I would think that any company using the phrases legitimately could make a good case that such a clickthrough in no way diminishes their rights to make reasonable use of "face" or "book." Really, though, Facebook should shackle its trademark lawyers a bit and tell them to chill out in all but the most egregious cases. Being a trademark bully is no way to build a company.

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]]>uh,-nice-tryhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120323/12075318226Mon, 4 Oct 2010 16:40:29 PDTCan The 'Gist' Of A Book Be Defamatory, Even If Nothing Is Proven False?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100928/22280111203/can-the-gist-of-a-book-be-defamatory-even-if-nothing-is-proven-false.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100928/22280111203/can-the-gist-of-a-book-be-defamatory-even-if-nothing-is-proven-false.shtml"went on a lawsuit bender," upon finding out a book by author Carla Main that was critical of some of his development projects. He not only sued the author and the publisher, but also someone who reviewed the book, the newspaper that published the review and (most ridiculous of all) an academic who wrote a blurb praising the book that went on the book's jacket. The suit against the blurb writer was tossed out for lack of jurisdiction, and for whatever reason, the newspaper and the reviewer "settled" the lawsuit (which seems unfortunate). However, the lawsuit against the book author and the publisher has continued. We argued, at the time, that this was a clear example of where better anti-SLAPP laws are needed, but seeing as there are no such laws in Texas, the case will focus on whether or not the book was defamatory.

With the trial now underway, Main's lawyers are pointing out that the book is "political and social criticism," and that Royall has not proven she got any facts wrong. Royall's response is somewhat stunning. His lawyers seem to be indicating that even if there's nothing factually wrong, the "conclusions" drawn from those facts are defamatory. In other words, there may be nothing wrong with the book, but the analysis of those facts, as a whole, is somehow defamatory. This sounds an awful lot like "well, I don't like what she said, and it makes me look bad -- even if based on fact -- and thus, it must be defamatory."

Once again, this seems like a clear SLAPP situation, where someone didn't like the speech of someone else, and filed a lawsuit. Claiming that the general "gist" of a book is defamatory without being able to show any actually false statements seems like a real stretch on defamation law.

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]]>chilling-effectshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100928/22280111203Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:44:00 PDTFacebook Sues Teachbook Over Trademark Concerns; Where's Legalbook?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100826/03320410784.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100826/03320410784.shtmlsuing the tiny Teachbook site, which apparently only has two employees and hasn't even launched yet. The concern, of course, is with the whole "book" ending. Even though Facebook took its name from the very commonly used "facebook" name given to the collections of photos handed out to incoming students at many colleges, it now feels that its name has become more closely connected with social networking. And it's afraid that anyone else using "book" as a suffix for a social networking site could lead to its own name being considered generic.

"The 'book' component of the Facebook mark has no descriptive meaning and is arbitrary and highly distinctive in the context of online communities and networking Web sites," the complaint explains. "If others could freely use 'generic plus BOOK' marks for online networking services targeted to that particular generic category of individuals, the suffix 'book' could become a generic term for 'online community/networking services' or 'social networking services.' That would dilute the distinctiveness of the Facebook marks, impairing their ability to function as unique and distinctive identifiers of Facebook's goods and services."

This isn't quite to the level (as some people are claiming) of Facebook claiming to own the word "book," but it does seem like a stretch. It's one of the many problems seen with the gradual broadening of trademark law to include such concepts as "dilution," rather than sticking to the basic "likelihood of confusion," standard. Whining about companies copying the suffix of your name seems pretty excessive. The tech world is littered with examples of certain prefixes and suffixes suddenly becoming popular among a number of companies after one becomes successful -- and it's never been a real problem for the original brand. Think of how many companies ended in "-ster" after "Napster," and how many companies copied Flickr in ending with an "r" and a dropped vowel.

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]]>generic-plus-bookhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100826/03320410784Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:44:00 PDTSignificant Objects Becomes A Book... More Infinite Goods Creating New ScarcitiesMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100615/0321019825.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100615/0321019825.shtmlcalled "Significant Objects," that involved a bunch of writers buying up random cheap/worthless trinkets, but then listing them on eBay along with a creative (fictional) story about the object. The "story" was given away for free, but the object cost money. What those involved in the project quickly found was that these worthless trinkets were suddenly selling for a lot more than their nominal "price." It was a perfect example of how an infinite good (the story), when properly attached to a scarce good (the trinket), can make that scarce good much more valuable. This is a point that many have trouble grasping. They think, when we discuss the economics of infinite and scarce goods, that the price on scarce goods always remains the same, and never seem to take into account how a connected infinite good can greatly raise the value and the price of a scarce good. A hit song (infinite) heard by millions increases the price of a concert tickets (scarce). A brilliant blog post (infinite) can increase the price of a consultant (scarce) who wrote it. A sterling reputation (infinite) for an automobile company can increase the price of the cars (scarce) they sell. It goes on and on and on.

The Significant Objects experiment was just a neat "pure" example of this in action, clearly showing how objects that otherwise would have been valued quite low by most potential buyers, could gain in value when an infinite element (a good story) was attached.

It's cool to see that those behind the Significant Objects projects are still trying to do more with the concept. The auctions apparently are still going on, but now they're trying something different as well. They're taking those stories and compiling them into a book (scarce). In fact, the story behind the book (infinite) makes the physical book more valuable as well. To make it even more "valuable," they've brought on some top artists to illustrate the stories -- so even if you read them for free online, there's now more value in buying the physical book to have the physical artwork as well.

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]]>coolhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100615/0321019825Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:23:45 PDTWin A Copy Of Kevin Smith&apos;s New BookMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090916/1618226213.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090916/1618226213.shtmlconnecting with fans in a variety of ways, and after doing so, some of "his people" (see? I got this movie business lingo down) contacted us to see if we wanted to give away some copies of his new book, Shootin' the Sh*t with Kevin Smith: The Best of SMODCAST. So, we said sure, because we're told by people all the time that Techdirt readers "just want stuff for free." These aren't signed books or anything -- we tried, and apparently we're not cool enough and the signed ones are a reason to buy, so if you want that, pay up, cheapskate. But, hey, these books are still free. What are you complaining about?

Anyway... I've put together some trivia questions, which shouldn't be that hard to answer if you listen to Smodcast regularly (or if you're a creative Googler). Alternatively, write up a comment about something having to do with Kevin Smith or his movies, and make it funny, cool or original (preferably all three). Anyway, we've got five books. There are three trivia questions. The first person to answer any one of the trivia questions correctly gets a book (if you know the answer to more than one question, don't be that guy -- we know you're awesome; just let someone else get it). Then we'll take the two best Kevin Smith stories and award the books to them. If, by Monday night, no one's been able to figure out the answers to trivia questions (and, who knows, maybe I'll give hints), then for every unanswered trivia question, we'll pick another "Kevin Smith story" writer. Oh yeah, make sure you include a working email in the email box so we can contact you and work out the details. If we can't reach you or you don't respond to our emails in time, the free book goes on to the next winner... That's about the deal. This is intended to be fun, so don't go nuts over it. Silent Bob wouldn't approve.

Trivia questions (remember, just answer one):

When Clerks was first shown at Cannes, what famous rocker did Scott Mosier have to go wake up on that rocker's yacht one morning?

Kevin's got some dogs (three, I believe). One has a habit of interrupting SModcast with barks, and recently traveled to NY to bark on a special east coast SMod. Name the dog...

Smith recently got to meet the father of one of his heroes, who he's suggested there should be a new religion around. Who did he meet?

Again, if you're the first to get any of those right, you get a book. If you get more than one right, you still get just one book, but whoever is quick and copies your second answer in the next comment gets the next book. If you don't know any of these... start listening to SModcasts, or write a cool story that involves Kevin or (more likely) his movies. Update: Wow, you guys are fast. All three trivia questions answered. But, now we're still open for stories: talk about Kevin or how he influenced your life in some way and a book could be yours...

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]]>connecting through contestshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090916/1618226213Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:18:33 PDTReason To Buy? The $1 Million Wine BookMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1550215983.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1550215983.shtmljohnjac points us to the news about the $1 million wine book. It is, as described, a book about wines that will run you a cool $1 million. Why? Well, because it comes with the wine it talks about. The book will list out the world's top 100 wineries, and with the book you'll get a six bottle case from each winery listed in the book. So, the book, plus 600 bottles of wine from the 100 best wineries in the world. They're only making 100 copies of the book... and 25 have already been pre-ordered, so hurry up and order.

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]]>might-be-a-very-limited-audiencehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090824/1550215983Fri, 5 Jun 2009 18:22:00 PDTStreisand To Publish An Entire Book Detailing The Malibu Home She Once Wanted To Keep Very, Very SecretMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090604/1402295132.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090604/1402295132.shtmlcoined the phrase "The Streisand Effect" to describe the situation where someone tries to force some content to be taken down, in an attempt to suppress it -- but, in doing so, winds up driving much more attention to the content. The name came from a lawsuit filed in 2003 by Barbara Streisand against environmentalist/photographer Ken Adelman, who had been photographing the entire California coast from a helicopter in order to document coastal erosion. Of course, in trying to have her photo taken off of his site, it generated significantly more interest in that particular photograph. Streisand eventually lost the lawsuit and was even ordered to pay nearly $200,000 in legal fees.

Of course, since then, the phrase "The Streisand Effect" has become fairly popular and in common usage -- and has been featured in Forbes, Associated Press articles and on NPR's All Things Considered -- and has even been translated into other languages. All because Streisand didn't want a distant photo of her Malibu home on the internet.

Thus, it's with some level of irony that we find out (thanks Stephen!) that Streisand is now putting together a book about the architecture of that very home including numerous photos of the home and property. Perhaps Ken Adelman should sue for helping her to realize that there was "demand" for photos of her Malibu home.

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]]>the-streisand-effect-bookhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090604/1402295132Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:59:33 PDTFrom Infinite To Scarce: xkcd Goes The Book RouteMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090420/1454574583.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090420/1454574583.shtmlis going to be putting out a book, and that it's being done avoiding the traditional book publishing process. There are some key quotes in there, including:

In fact, the xkcd story previews the much more likely future of books in which they are prized as artifacts, not as mechanisms for delivering written material to readers. This is print book as vinyl record -- admired for its look and feel, its cover art, and relative permanence -- but not so much for convenience.

And then there's the more important point about Randall Munroe not worrying about copying of the content -- and instead focusing on the other direction:

Publishing a book is an extension of the selling of items like T-shirts and posters, which pays the bills, he said, to a "free culture" mind-set about the cartoons themselves. "We have been encouraging people to share things, saying that it is a good business decision," he said....

One trick in transferring the material from online to print has been how to recreate the "title text" that comments on the strip when your cursor hovers over it.

"It's not supposed to be a punch line, but hopefully if you didn't laugh, you'll laugh at this," he said. The title text will appear where the tiny copyright notice would appear on a traditional strip.

Does that mean that the book won't carry a traditional copyright and instead take its lead from the online comic strip itself, which Mr. Munroe licenses under Creative Commons, allowing noncommercial re-use as long as credit is given?

"To anyone who wants to photocopy, bind, and give a copy of the book to their loved one -- more power to them," he said. "He/She will likely be disappointed that you're so cheap, though."

It's been clear from pretty much the beginning that Munroe understands that getting more widely known is a lot more important than worrying about "piracy," and it's great to see him take that attitude even further.

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]]>the-way-things-work-these-dayshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090420/1454574583Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:08:41 PSTRonald Goldman's Father Sues Pirate Bay Over OJ Simpson Book. Will He Sue Google Too?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071130/111214.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071130/111214.shtmlsuing the Pirate Bay, claiming he's "lost" at least $150,000. That, of course, incorrectly assumes that the people who downloaded the book would have bought it in the first place (most of them wouldn't have) and that none of the people who downloaded it later bought the book to read it in the more convenient book form. No matter. It's more fun to just sue. Goldman tries to bolster his argument by pointing out that The Pirate Bay has big name advertisers on the site, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not the one who offered up the infringing content. Besides, if that's Goldman's criteria, why doesn't Goldman sue Google as well? After all, a simple search on Google shows that you can find the book there as well -- and there are advertisements right next to it as well.